


Ten Days From Raven's Roost

by Scenitroute (katielgk)



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angry Mango, Angst, Happy Mango, Sad Mango
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 22:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13222323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katielgk/pseuds/Scenitroute
Summary: Magnus Burnsides travels 10 days to Neverwinter from his home in Raven’s Roost to enter his hand made rocking chair into a carpentry arts contest, where he is expected to win the award that will officially recognize him as a master carpenter.  Two days into his journey, his home is attacked by the very villain he defeated not long before.  76 people were killed, including his new wife, Julia, and her father-his mentor, Steven.





	Ten Days From Raven's Roost

**Author's Note:**

> Alright so this is my first finished TAZ fic. Thank you Vanr for bete-ing this for me! Magnus Burnsides is just...my absolute favorite. He's perfect, and pure...and I had to see him hurt I am so sorry. Enjoy!

_ “Do you remember the last thing you said?”  
“I said…’I love you Jules’.” _

* * *

* * *

 

It was the last of the warmer months and Neverwinter was crowded.  The townspeople lined the streets with booths to pander their best merchandise, and tourists from towns away came to explore.  While the days were still long, skilled craftsmen traveled from all over to compete for gold and title, to be recognized for their craft.  The competitions pulled in many business owners and wealthy collectors looking to commission the most talented workers.

The excitement could be felt throughout the busy city, and it infected Magnus as he strolled through the marketplace, a particular bounce in his step of pride despite the burden on his back.  It was still early in the day, and Magnus was beaming with energy and grinning as he scanned the rows of shops.  He didn't stop at any of them, and only slowed to wave a quick goodbye to a fellow competitor he'd met during his time here.  The road led out of Neverwinter into a much smaller town on the outskirts, but Magnus was going further than that.  On his back was strapped his now prize-winning chair, along with his normal pack of rations.  A ten day journey lay ahead of him, and he was eager to get home and share the news of his victory with his new wife, who was waiting there for him.

Jules would say she wasn’t surprised, but kiss him excitedly all the same.  Mr. Waxmen would clap him on the back with a bark of laughter.  Magnus….Magnus would just be happy to be home again.

Magnus had never considered that a quiet life in a small village would suit him.  For as long as he had known, he had always been on the go.  Even as he exited Neverwinter he had the urge to go back and explore what he hadn’t yet seen there.  Yet when he thought of home, of Julia, his heart felt settled, and longed to return.

His pace quickened a little as he pictured her smiling face.  Ten more days until he reached Raven’s Roost, and held Jules in his arms again.  That was better than any adventure or prize, he thought.

* * *

Two nights in a row Magnus didn’t bother looking for an inn to sleep in.  He set up a small camp for himself and laid on a mat he’d brought along.  There were a few clouds, but the moon shone bright and lit up their wispy edges from behind.  Magnus stared at the stars that were visible, awed by them.  He had a certain fondness for clear starry nights that he couldn’t quite explain.  Julia never did question it, content with watching the night sky with him.  They would talk about the expanse of stars, and she would go on about constellations and beauty when Magnus fell silent, staring in wonder at the thousands of white lights.

Magnus awoke early the third morning and set off again.  Throughout the day the clouds grew denser, and darker, and much earlier than the night before, the sky grew dark.

The closest village was miles behind him when the rain started to fall, but only moments after the first droplet hit Magnus, he saw a small cottage ahead.  A wooden awning stuck out over the front door, off center, but still providing cover for the doorway with some extra space to stay comfortably out of the sun, or, as Magnus thought now, the rain.

It took several moments after knocking for the door to open, and Magnus was greeted by a half elven man wearing stained brown pants and a light knitted shirt.

“Oh!” he said.  “Hello!”

“Hail and well met!”  Magnus smiled a little sheepishly and waved.  “I um.. I'm travelling a long way and I wondered if I could impose on you for a short time.  If it's fine with you, I'll just stay out here under this cover until the rain passes, and be on my way again.”

The man stepped forward a bit and looked at the sky and the rain now pouring down heavily.

“This storm will surely last through the night,” he hummed, scratching his ear as Magnus’s face fell.  Then, a little forlornly he added, “Probably floor th garden in too…”

The man stepped back to the doorway, motioning to Magnus.  “Come on in stranger,” he invited.  “We won’t have you sit on the stair the whole evening and we’ve just finished making some stew.  You’re a big fella but I’m sure there’s enough for yo-”

A muffled crash interrupted him that made both men jump, followed by a voice calling from further inside the house.

“Mattias!  Matti it's fallen again!”

The man grimaced but led Magnus inside.

“You can leave your pack in the corner there,” he said, quickly pointing it out and heading into the adjacent room.

Magnus set the chair down first, adjusting the canvas covering it as he did, then laid his bag and rolled up mat on its seat before turning to follow his host.

Just inside the other room was a small round table, worn with scratches on its surface.  A pile of trinkets lay scattered across it and a stack of books toppled as it was pushed by a second, held by a dark skinned human woman.  She snatched one book before it fell off the table and moved to adjust the stack before looking up and seeing Magnus for the first time.

“Hello!” she said, smiling through clear exasperation.  “Please excuse the mess, this shelf just doesn’t want to stay together anymore.”

“I’m sorry love,” Mattias straightened up next to her, having picked up a couple boards that had come apart.  It was a small bookshelf that seemed to be poorly attached at the corners, causing it to come apart.  “I’ll see if I can find a new one in town.”

Magnus didn’t miss a beat.  “I can fix that for you!”

The couple laughed.  “Don’t you worry about it,” the woman said.  “Please dear sit.  What’s your name?”

“Magnus Burnsides.”

“Welcome Magnus,” the woman smiled.  The pair finished picking up the fallen items and did’t complain when Magnus helped to carry them into the other room so they could all sit at the table to eat.

Their names were Jaznah and Mattias, a young couple who had just inherited this little cottage from Jaznah’s parents.  She was pregnant, and they had plans to build another room onto the home to make space for their growing family.  However they were struggling to keep together what was already there.

“It’s a perfect home for us,” Mattias said as he finished his meal.  “There's plenty to fix up, but we'll manage.  It's just old.”

“Matti is always so positive about things,” Jaznah stood from the table and collected their bowls.  “But we’ll have enough money to hire someone if we can’t finish the extra room in time.”

Mattias rolled his eyes with a smile and moved to help her as Magnus chuckled.

He stood from the table as well and went around to look over the broken shelf.  It looked like a simple fix in refastening the corners so they wouldn’t tilt when weight was placed on them.  He insisted on mending it as repayment for the meal and shelter, and they relented.

Magnus settled on the floor with some tools he’d retrieved from his pack and set to work eagerly.  Jaznah took a notebook from the stack of books and sat back at the table with a contented sigh.  Mattias finished cleaning up from their dinner before taking to watch Magnus work.

“This must be your trade,” he commented, and Magnus nodded.

“I’m actually returning home from the Continental Craftsman Showcase,” he muttered as he sanded the roughened edges of the wooden sheets.  “Back home I work in a pretty well renowned shop.”

“So you’re a pretty big deal!”  Mattias laughed.  “Something like this old shelf is hardly worth your time.”

Magnus waved a hand.  “This is the least I could do for the kindness you’ve shown me.  After this I’ll be on my way as well so-”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Mattias interrupted.  “Don’t you hear that storm?  That won’t be over anytime soon.”

“I couldn’t, it’s too much trouble…”

“It’s no trouble at all,” said Jaznah with finality, looking up from her notebook which she had begun writing in.  “It’s night anyway, and there’s no inn for miles.”

Smiling appreciatively, Magnus bowed his head and thanked them both.  He carefully set new nails into the connecting corners of the shelf, then tested the other corners to make sure they didn’t also need repair.  As he went he described the work to Mattias, who began asking for advice on the building project ahead of them.  The shelf was finished quickly, and the pair moved to the more open sitting area.  There was a single bench in the room, padded with sheepskin and placed in front of a simple hearth where a fire was already going.  As they went Magnus looked back at Jaznah, who stayed at the table, bent over her notebook, focused on writing. He found himself staring with a sense of comforting familiarity.

“She likes to write stories,” Mattias explained.  “They’re really something too, I’ll never need to try and come up with something to entertain our children.”

“She’s so focused,” Magnus said, almost to himself.  He pictured Julia pouring over the stack of orders they'd received, tongue between her teeth as she sorted through the work.

He was pulled from his brief daydream by Mattias’s voice, quiet and full of emotion that Magnus easily recognized.

“She just enters her own world when she writes.  It’s truly amazing.”

A warm expression of deep admiration fell over Mattias’s features as he gazed at Jaznah, and Magnus felt exciting welling up in him again to get home.

They relaxed on the bench and talked for a while, until Jaznah joined them and Magnus pulled out the prize-winning rocking chair to show them.

“Oh my god!” she exclaimed.  “How did you get it to smell so good?  Lavender is my favorite!”

Magnus laughed, and invited her to sit in it.

“It’s a beautiful work of art,” Mattias said.  “I’d say it’s worth the journey to Raven’s Roost for new furniture if you’re making it!  Expect to see me sometime!”

“I’ll be looking forward to it!”

Late into the night they talked and laughed, before finally turning in.  They left Magnus to recline on the bench, giving him some blankets and extra padding for the night.

By the next morning, the rain had stopped.  Magnus, despite his eagerness to get home, happily stayed for breakfast before saying goodbye to Jaznah as Mattias walked him outside.  He readied his pack again, making sure his tools were secured inside, and stopped before slinging the rocking chair onto his back.

“Hey Mattias,” he called.  The man stopped with his hand on the door and looked back at Magnus.

“What’s up?”

Magnus lifted the chair up and carried it up to the house.  “I want you guys to have this.”

“What?  N-No Magnus, take this back home to your wife,” Mattias tried to push it back into Magnus’s arms as he set it down, but Magnus gently stopped him.

Smiling, he said, “Trust me, we have no shortage of decent chairs in the Hammer and Tongs.  I think this will be better suited for you and Jaznah.”

Defeated, Mattias eyed the chair, and then looked up at Magnus.  “You really want to leave this with us?”

“Consider it a gift for the baby,” Magnus suggested, shrugging.

Mattias took his hand in a firm shake, grinning widely.  “Thank you so much friend!  Jazzy will love this!”

“It’ll be a good place to read her stories to the kids,” Magnus said, and Mattias agreed.

“Please stop by again if you’re ever nearby!”  he said as Magnus walked away again.  “Bring Julia too!”

“I will!”  Magnus waved, and he set off again, homeward.

* * *

On the seventh day Magnus made a new friend.  A stray dog followed him for some time, trotting along beside him.  Delighted, Magnus stopped to play with the hound, and when he stopped to rest around midday, the dog lounged on the ground next to him.  That night Magnus found a small village, but the dog would not follow him closer to it.  With a sad sigh, Magnus gave the stray some of his rations and scratched its ears before entering the village to find an inn.

The place was small and inexplicably crowded, but he breathed a sigh of relief when the owner said there was a single room available. He didn’t linger in the common area, instead Magnus tucked himself away in his room and drifted off.  Only a few more days until he was home.

The innkeeper invited him to sit for a meal in the common area before leaving.  Magnus was eager to be on his way, but sat at the bar anyway.  The room wasn’t nearly as crowded as the night before.  At one of the two occupied tables sat 3 men who spoke loudly, but it was friendly and Magnus ignored them.

He chewed on some spiced bread and absently squished the bit of cheese on his plate as he planned for the day.  If he kept up his pace he could easily make it home before the next day was out.  Bouncing a little in his chair, he dug in his pockets for a few coins to leave.

“Did you see those folks last night?” a voice asked from the table behind him.  “Heard they were on the run.”

“What, are they outlaws?”

The third man chimed in.  “No, they said they was attacked.  Y’know that city on the columns?  Raven’s Roost.”

The coins in Magnus’s fingers fell, bouncing on the floor.

“Everything alright sir?” the innkeeper asked, watching the coins roll across the floor.  Magnus didn’t answer him.

“Raven’s Roost?”  he called to the three men, who turned to look at him.  “Is that what you said?”

One of the men glanced at his companions then back up at Magnus.  “Yes,” he said.  “A few travelers came from there talking about how their city was attacked.”

Magnus blanched and his mouth dried up.  “Attacked?” he croaked, and stumbled forward to their table.  “Do you know anything else?  Any details?”

“Not much,” the man said apologetically.  “The group seemed keen on passing through quickly.  Sounded like they weren't the only ones.”

“Who….who attacked?”

“Some tyrant, didn't catch the name.  Gotta be well off though since he managed explosives.”

“You from Raven’s Roost?” the third man asked taking a drink.  “Lucky soul you weren't around.  Seems like one of the columns fell, right out from under them people’s feet.”

“Poor souls…” the first man lamented, swirling his glass on its edges on the table.

Magnus didn't ask for any more, rushing out of the inn and forgetting his pack.  Raven’s Roost was still three days journey away, but he didn't think about that, focusing only on getting back as fast as he could.

He didn’t stop once, he couldn’t.  Terrible possibilities burst through his mind like jolts of lightning.  Steven taught him everything Magnus knew.  He was resourceful and wise and would have made it out of the Craftsman Corridor with Julia, who was brilliant on her own.  He only had to find them.  Even as he assured himself, terror gripped at his heart every moment, and drove him to travel through the nights, until he finally arrived at the first column of the city, his home, a full day early.

* * *

It was abandoned.  A ghost town.  Every building and home was an empty shell, but he passed them all by, heading straight for the place he knew most of all.  

And it was gone.  The woodshed, The Hammer and Tongs, the broad desk where Julia stacked their orders and watched Magnus work.  Their home...

It was all gone, fallen entirely with all the other shops in Craftsmen Corner.  The bridge that had been that column’s connection with the others hung from the residential column in ruins.  A sign was hammered into the ground in front of the bridgeposts.  A hurried homage to the lost lives, and under it, a list.

A choked sob echoed through the empty air.

Magnus lowered himself to his knees.  He felt like he could melt down, and simply slip over the edge.  Instead he just stared over it, down into the fog below.  Everything he had, all he'd loved and worked for, was below that fog, dashed against the rocks.  There were no ruins for him to search.  No bodies to mourn over.  His fingers dug into the dirt and rocks, clenching as he leaned forward, head hanging over the precipice.

The Mad Governor Kalen only attacked the one column of Raven’s Roost.  The shops and of the brave men and women who turned against him.  A ragtag team of craftspeople who took back their homes and livelihood.  No rescue attempts could even be made for the 76 souls that were in Craftsmen Corridor.  Every family left, once accounted for, packed their bags and left the forsaken city, fearful of any further attack.  Raven’s Roost was a ghost town, with no one to hear or answer the anguished cries of a man who had lost everything.

* * *

Some weeks later, Magnus sat alone in a small tavern.  He had no pack, but held a drink in front of him, nearly empty.  His calloused fingers rubbed against the grain of the wooden table.  Tiny splinters brushed away as he went, and he thought of sanding it, and the smell of sawdust.

The door to the tavern opened, letting in a sliver of outside light, before closing again.  Magnus’s mind emptied again, saved from the flash of a too recent memory.  He downed the last gulp of his drink and wiped his face with the palm of his hand, eyelids drooping.

“Burnsides?” His eyes shot open.

The voice came from over him.  Magnus leaned back in his seat, shaking his head a little to wake up.  A familiar half-orc man stood there, holding his own drink and watching him with cautious smile.

Magnus grunted.  “Stanek.”  He peered back down into his glass, half-hoping Stanek would leave.  Instead he heard the chair opposite him scrape against the floor, and the man sat with him.  Stanek let out a slow sigh.

“We wondered what happened to you,” he said.  “Gunnar said he tried to find you on the road from Neverwinter, but never passed you.”

“I went off the road for a while,” Magnus glared at a spot on the table.  “Didn’t want to bother with inns.”

“I’m not surprised.”

Silence fell between them, and Stanek drank half his cup in it.  Magnus didn’t move.

“No one knew what happened,” he muttered finally, clenching his fists.  “It was days before we knew it was Kalen.  By then he was long gone.”

Stanek’s hands relaxed again, but his voice cracked as he continued.  “76 people were in Craftsmen Corridor that morning.  Shopkeepers mostly, a handful of families….76 souls taken.”

Magnus moved, slowly turning his glare at Stanek, his teeth grinding together.

“76 lives ended,” he growled out.  “He killed Julia-everyone, because of us.”

“We didn’t do this Magnus.”

“No,” Magnus agreed, brows furrowing.  “Kalen caused all of this.”

He laid his palms flat on the table and sat up just slightly so he could lean forward, still staring straight at Stanek.

“I’m going to kill him,” he said.  “I’m going to hunt him down and end Kalen.”

Stanek sat back slowly, eyes widening.  “Shit Magnus,” he glanced around, then pulled himself back to look at his friend.  “No one knows where he’s gone.”

“I will find him Stanek.”

“And if you do?”  Stanek opened his palms to the air.  “He’s still got plenty of followers, too many people are protecting him.  Magnus you led an army but that army...all those people are gone now.  You won’t be able to reach him Magnus, it’s a suicide mission!”

As he spoke Magnus hunched his shoulders more and more, and his hands curled on the table into tight fists.  At Stanek’s last word Magnus slammed both fists down with a loud grunt.  “I DON’T CARE!”

Stanek reeled back, gaping at him.  The room went quiet as the handful of other patrons eyed the pair warily.  The bartender barked an order to calm down from behind his counter.  Magnus acknowledged him with a fierce look, but sat back in his seat, keeping his balled up hands in the small spaces he’d indented into the wood.

He spoke again, a low growl that only Stanek could hear as Magnus lowered his head again to stare in his lap.

“He took everything from me.  I don’t care anymore.  I have nothing, and I don’t give a shit.”

As Magnus’s composure shifted, loosening, Stanek’s own eyes started to water.  “I’m going to find him, alone,” Magnus said.  “And I’m going to kill him.  It’s all I have.”

* * *

* * *

_ “You earned your happy ending Magnus.  If you use me, you can have it all back.” _

_ “Julia wouldn’t want this.” _


End file.
